PRO DUNGEON IMPACT

Copyright © 2021 Ron Starke

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental or is intended purely as satire, parody or spoof of such persons. Or frankly, out of sheer nostalgic love.

This is a work of comedic fiction and is intended to be digested as such. Readers should not dive into this work expecting an experience on par with classic literature, and those that approach the following pages with such a mindset should immediately think of the most absurd joke they have ever heard. If unable to think of one, the publisher suggests the following:

Sometimes I tuck my knees to my chest and lean forward. That's just how I roll.

ONE: OBLIVION

Lars Ochre wasn’t exactly the religious type. He never went to church—other than the occasional Easter as a kid. Nor did he believe in supernatural things, either. And as far as he was concerned, the jury was out on the whole afterlife thing, too. There could be life after death, or there couldn’t. It wasn’t something he let himself get bent out of shape about. He knew that when he died he would either find out, or he wouldn’t.

It was that simple.

Yet, despite all the warnings from his doctor about high cholesterol and heart disease and being a big bastard in general, Lars never expected to die quite yet. He always knew it was a possibility. He had taken more damage in the ring than a lot of people took during a normal lifetime. Yes, Lars Ochre had been through more surgeries and procedures than he could count on two hands. If anesthesia was a trial run for death, Lars wasn’t a stranger to the black oblivion that followed.

He always thought that was the best candidate for the experience of death. Blackness. Oblivion. Nothing. A bodiless non-existence. The funny thing was, it was all of that. But there was something else, too. Something he never could have predicted.

You see, Lars Ochre never expected to get a flashing red prompt telling him his run at the game of life was over.